Oasis, along with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Chihwaseon, is
one of the most anticipated Korean films in 2002. It won four awards at the Venice Film
Festival and the lead actress Moon So-Ri is the winner of this year's Blue Dragon new
actress award.

For the general audience, the focus of this movie is usually the cast, with Sol Kyung-Gu
as a young man who is just released from jail and is considered a shame by the family, and
Moon So-Ri as a physically handicapped girl who is suffering from serious cramp. Jong-Du (Sol
Kyung-Gu) comes across Gong-Ju (Moon So-Ri) in an unexpected encounter and he soon forms
a strange kind of affection for her. Without the awareness of their families, a clandestine
love relationship gradually develops between the two of them... A bizarre love
relationship is actually not a very explosive subject, early in this year, Kim Gi-Duk's
Bad Guy has already demonstrated the power of sadistic love. Nevertheless, director
Lee Chang-Dong's approach is very different from Kim Gi-Duk. He is not an exotic and
surrealistic stylist, his style leans more towards the realist school in which a solid and
realistic drama structure is stressed.

The two protagonists in this film are very similar, both of them are disabled in a certain way and fail
to live in this society without the assistance of other people. Jong-Du is unable to find a
good job because of his criminal record and his laziness; Gong-Ju is suffering from cramp
that prohibits her from leading a normal life (But she is not mentally handicapped).
At first glance, it seems that the director is apathetic for setting up such a forced tragedy,
but if you look closely, you will begin to realize that Lee Chang-Dong does actually show
genuine emotions towards the characters he designed (He also wrote the script of this movie).
His intention of telling this story is to fight for these minorities of the society rather
than to tease or ridicule them. The humanitarian attitude of the story should remind you
of Japanese master Akira Kurosawa's movies like Red Beard and Dodesukaden.
Gong-Ju's tragedy is, to a certain extent, the fault of her ignorant brother. Her
brother does not care about her at all. After he is assigned an apartment for the disabled,
he leaves her in their dilapidated and shabby apartment and only visits her once a while.
That's why he doesn't know Gong-Ju is dating Jong-Du and finally leads to the tragic ending...
Jong-Du an Gong-Ju are also discriminated from places to places in the movie.
What is introspective is that, their harsh encounters throughout the film are not blatantly
performed at all, it is instead a very authentic capture of what is happening around our
life in this society every day.

It is no wonder why Sol Kyung-Gu is regarded as the most popular actor in Korea right now.
His range and acting ability is so diverse that, in the beginning of the year, you still
saw his balloon face in Public Enemy, and in this film, he quickly lost more than
30 pounds and transformed himself into an underweighted young man, and in both movies his
roles are equally attractive and impressive. Moon So-Ri as the disabled girl is also
flawless. I especially like the several scenes in which she acts like a normal girl and
has some funny moments with Jong-Du. These scenes are probably her imagination. The only
thing I don't like is that the director sometimes spends too much time to capture her
seemingly meaningless gesture, which slows down the pace of the movie a lot.

Oasis is a very solid drama that reflects reality in an honest manner. For
the minority groups like Gong-Ju and Jong-Du, living in this harsh society is just like
being trapped in a hot desert. To find happiness in their life is equal to the odd of
finding an oasis in the desert...